Adorno argues, “The popular music industry is an all consuming production line that churns out mass produced, inferior commodities” (T. Adorno, 1941). Adorno also believed that the whole structure of popular music is standardized, these can be split into ‘part interchangeability’ used to streamline production costs and ‘ pseudo individualization’ used to illustrate uniqueness to a product that is essentially the same as others. However, Adorno has mad a key error with his judgment because standardization can be applied to other genres for example Jim Connell’s ‘The Red Flag’ is influenced by the 18th century folk song ‘My Love Was Born in Aberdeen’.
On the other hand, Bernard gendron believes that the song is ‘universal’ and the playable format is ‘particular’. Therefore the original pop music produced is certainly an art form, its just the CD/vinyl it’s recorded on turns into a mass-produced commodity. The X Factor streaming of pop talents diminish the clarity of art form, however previous artists such as Elvis restores the art form argument due to his notable creativity.
This is a pretty solid argument.
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